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(Testimony of Kerry Wendell Thornley)
Mr. Thornley.
the great interest in communism. I think he wanted--I think he felt he was under a totalitarian system while in the Marine Corps, and, therefore, the extreme reactions when someone would call him a Communist. I think he had a persecution complex, and I think he strove to maintain it. I could not go so far as to say why. Perhaps it was necessary to his self-esteem in some way. This was and is the general conclusion I now have as to his general motivations, his overall motivations, insofar as he has tended to be emotionally unstable.
Mr. Jenner.
Do you think he was emotionally unstable?
Mr. Thornley.
I think so.
Mr. Jenner.
That is an opinion you gathered from your association with him in the Marines.
Mr. Thornley.
Yes. Primarily once again from that last experience, that short exchange and just the complete unexpectedness of it. And then, of course, after that was when I learned some of the other things, such as the pouting the beer over the staff sergeant's head. These things, I don't know when I learned them, but I do definitely know I learned them afterwards because I--
Mr. Jenner.
You mean you learned of that incident after you left the base at El Tore?
Mr. Thornley.
I believe I learned it over in Japan, as a matter of fact, I believe soon after I got there somebody mentioned it in some connection or another, and that was because I remember, yes, I am sure it happened over there because I remember, then I said, "Oh, he was in this unit? He was in here in MACS 1?" and somebody said, "Yes." And that was another connection in my mind as far as Oswald was concerned.
And then when the defection occurred, I therefore felt that I--I had been thinking about writing a book on the Marine Corps. I had not decided exactly what it was going to concern, what it was going to be about as far as plot or theme went, the background would be the Marine Corps in Japan, because that was the first big, at that time to me, dramatic experience of my life suitable for a book, worth telling about.
So, when the defection occurred on that same day, I thought, "Well, this is it. I am in a perfect position to tell how this took place, why this happened." I was not so interested in explaining Lee Harvey Oswald to myself or anybody else, as I was in explaining that particular phenomenon of disillusionment with the United States after serving in the Marine Corps overseas in a peacetime capacity; thus the title: The Idle Warriors.
Since Oswald inspired the book, I did base a good deal of it as a matter of convenience on his personality and on his ideas.
Mr. Jenner.
You said you had the impression as you sat there in Japan that here was a man whom you felt wanted to be on the winning side.
Mr. Thornley.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
What impression did you have as to why? Did you, for example, have the impression that he felt that his life had been such that he had been deprived of the opportunity to be on a good side?
Mr. Thornley.
No.
Mr. Jenner.
That he conceived to be the leading side?
Mr. Thornley.
No. I had a definite impression of why.
Mr. Jenner.
All right.
Mr. Thornley.
I think it is a mistake that many people make, and I think it is a mistake he shared, and that is: he looked upon, not only Marxists make this mistake, but he looked upon history as God. He looked upon the eyes of future people as some kind of tribunal, and he wanted to be on the winning side so that 10,000 years from now people would look in the history books and say, "Well, this man was ahead of his time. This man was"--he wanted to be looked back upon with honor by future generations. It was, I think, a substitute, in his case, for traditional religion.
The eyes of the future became what to another man would be the eyes of God, or perhaps to yet another man the eyes of his own conscience.
Mr. Jenner.
So it wasn't in the prosaic sense of merely wanting to be on the "winning side."
Mr. Thornley.
No.
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